29 May 2008

We're Back!

Travel Blog… star date 5.29.08… we’ve been back for 4 days yet still no internet… but we are all still breathing… don’t expect emails until June!

Not much excitement on the flight from DC to Ethiopia… or we’ve gotten used to this strange reality that we live in…

Flying Ethiopian Airlines always accelerates the cultural adaption to Uganda… our flight from DC to Ethiopia took off an hour late… at check-in the average family size was 8… the carry-ons of the other passengers could easily hold a full grown goat… and the meat on the flight was something I couldn’t recognize but was referred to as “beef”…

Kadin hardly slept the entire 15-hour flight… but this time I made it through with my pants still intact… refer back to January 24 post… the Ethiopian man to his left didn’t seem to mind being kicked for 15 hours…

Noah talked to the nice couple behind us for 14 of the 15 hours… he shared every detail of our lives and embarrassing family secrets that don’t make it on the blog… I’m just happy he doesn’t know our bank account or social security numbers…

Christine read an entire John Grishom and I read a James Patterson… I was happy to read James giving props to Atascadero multiple times in The 6th Target… I’ll put it on a book shelve right next to the My Blue Heaven DVD…

But the excitement got started when we got home and were greeted by our dog… Kabaka… at least we have been told it is Kabaka…

If we’ve been to our place at night you’ve probably have met our brown 80 pound mutt/ German shepherd with big brown eyes… if you’ve white he probably knocked you over with kisses and yelps to joy… if you black he probably tried to bite your head off for dinner…

You don’t train them this way its just normal around these parts…

But something was different… there was a black 50 pound mutt / German shepherd with big brown eyes… laying in the middle of our driveway barely lifting a paw to acknowledge our long awaited arrival…

The story goes that he got out one night… which isn’t unusual… but what was unusual was that he didn’t come back within 5 minutes… he didn’t come home at all but was found the next day about a mile from our house by Faith… not by faith… but by Faith the nurse who lives with us….

He had been severely beaten by some Ugandans… I’m guessing Kabaka attacked the wrong crowd and got the beat down of a life time… he was bleeding from several places and hardly moving… so Faith put him on a boda boda and drove him home…

Over the next few weeks he lost 30 pounds and took on a Micheal Jaskson-esque pigmentation transformation… he went from vicious guard dog to mellow family pet…

We wouldn’t have recognized him but his big brown eyes and being the only neutered male in a 10 mile radius were dead give-aways that it was still Kabaka…